ABSTRACT: It is increasingly clear that women are more vulnerable than men to some of the negative effects of chronic alcohol consumption, including immune system dysfunction and neurodegeneration. Project 2 will focus on identifying sex differences in biomarkers of alcohol-induced neurodegeneration that lead to neural adaptations that drive the addiction cycle. In the current study, we will collect pilot data to examine whether chronic alcohol consumption is associated with reductions in microglia (Aim 1) and synaptic density (Aim 2) and if the impairment varies by sex.